Can you justify putting Floyd Mayweather Jr in a top 10 ATG list?

Im not sure where id rank Floyd but top ten is laughable. Where are his great wins? Id have to say he might be top 40ish most likely but definitely not top 10 and laughable to even suggest hes the best of all time.

 

If he's top 40 ish then Pac is top 70 ish.

 

I love Hagler and he is definetly ATG,but i also think he is little bit overrated

People say Floyd have all the advantages.Don't matter how great Duran is,but he is LW.and Marvelous went life and death with Duran.and also Lost to Leonard who was way past his Prime and 147pounder.

Only true great victory is against Hearns who also was former WW.

Hagler never moved up.and only beat couple of really elite MW'S Mugabi etc..

And please i hope nobody gets offended,as i said Hagler is ATG but for me not even close top 30.i rate another great MW Hopkins higher than Hagler.

Of course we can disagree,but as great Hagler was.to me he is just little bit overrated

 

Personally, I'm not that impressed with the stat padding of the older generation fighters.

I think people are under the pretense that Armstrong, Harry Greb and Ray RObinson were only fighting top contenders in their weight classes EVERY single time out.

That wasn't the case at all. Guys might've fought up to 15-20 times annually back than, but they fought tomato cans for about 90% of those matches. These wre guys that were literally part time club fighters who had full time jobs outside of boxing and only boxed on the weekends.

People make mention of Ray Robinson beating Lamotta inside a 3 week timespan after losing to him (first official loss on his record.) They speak about Robinson having a tune-up fight in between the Lamotta matches, but I can guarantee you no one knows who that fighter is. It was a lcub fighter and he fought him because HE NEEDED THE MONEY.

Another misnomer is this idea that fighters back than only fought for legacy. Ray RObsinon is the greatest fighter ever, and he made mention a MILLION times how he hated the sport, and if he had made enough money he would've retired years before he actually did.

If those guys were making FLoyd Mayweather type of money, they wouldn't have fought more than once or twice a year.

An example I can use that can corroborate that statement is the great manassa Mauler Jack Dempsey. Dempsey back in the late teens/early 20's started making FLoyd Mayweather money in his fights. He was a part of the first million dollar purse in the sport's history. Before Dempsey became champion, he was a very active fighter. The moment he won the title and started seeing these humongous paydays, he started fighting as infrequently as once every couple years.

So this isn't anything new, it's just people either don't know the actual stories of these old time fighters, or they just want to pretend like those kind of things didn't exist back than.

On a side note though, a lot of those guys deserve their high rankings. I mean RObinson has wins over around 30 Hall of fame fighters. The statistics are just staggering. Guys like him, Henry Armstrong and Harry Greb deserve the praise that's showered on them. They were great, great fighters.

 

Regardless of why they fought often, then still did and that has to count for something. A fighter who fought 150 and won the vast majority of his fights has to be ranked higher than someone who fought 40-50 times and won them all, if the level of competition is the same.

Anyway, I agree with everything you've said, especially the last paragraph.

 

I get the impression this is a pretty old article. Barkley had a stroke a few years ago. Torres died six years ago. Dundee died three years ago.

Torres and Dundee were dead before Mayweather beat Cotto, Alvarez and Pacquiao.

Even so, most thought it was too close to call.

By the time Mayweather's career is over, I'm sure most will pick him to have beaten Duran.

After a 29-year-old Duran edged Leonard in 1980, Roberto had a very ordinary 32-15 record over the remainder of his career and he was an embarrassment much of the time.

There was a very small window when Duran would've had a chance against Mayweather. After the age of 29, Duran wouldn't have had a prayer.

He certainly never would've knocked out Mayweather (Ortiz felt that was the only way Duran would've won).

 

I couldn't disagree more.

There are a lot of modern fighters who engaged in a lot of bouts.

Buck Smith was a regular on ESPN in the late 80s and early 90s.

Smith had a record of 180 wins and 20 losses (and nearly all those losses came at the very end of his career). I think he's second behind Archie Moore all-time with 120 KOs.

And BUCK SMITH WASN'T GREAT. He was a solid pro, but nothing special at all. Just "a guy."

So I wouldn't just give all the pioneers you never saw fight with a big record a "pass" and assume they or 90 percent of the guys they beat were something special.

There are A LOT of Buck Smith fights on tape. He was an ordinary guy.

But if he fought in 1905, and there was no tape on him, I think plenty of guys here would by hyping him as something he wasn't, or touting a win over Smith as some major accomplishment because of his record and the number of KOs he scored.

Who they fought and how they look matters.

Harold Brazier is another guy with 100 plus wins (105 wins, 18 losses). He fought Buck Smith a couple times (a 15-round no-decision and a six-round no-decision). Like Smith, he lost to most of the names he fought but beat everyone else.

Good fighter. Nothing special.

 

He might just about make top 15 if we're being generous but I have him and Manny top 25.

 

I think, cause this is just a thinking game some peep needs to stop acting like they know everything for a fact...

I think there is a version of hearns that give mayweather a nice beating and I think there is a version of floyd who can give the rest troubles.

 

I did say if the competition was of similar nature, did I not?

 

If you read the beginning of the article you would see that the focus was on their primes at lightweight. For some who appears to have read the article, you missed the most important point.

And if you're ranking him ahead of Duran, than you're pretty much putting him as one of the top 5 ATG p4p in the history of the sport. This seems like more than just a stretch.

 

Yeah but those guys didnt fight anywhere enear the level of competition on the way to 49-0. Not all 49-0's are created equal. Floyd breaks the top 20, probably not top 10.

 

fmj the best ever only in vegas.

 

after he beat pac you could make a case for it, most prob wont tho

 

Floyd Mayweather arguably loses to Castillo and draws against Maidana. People are trying to suggest he'd beat Duran, the king of rough, intelligent aggression.

This is absolutely ridiculous.

Floyd Mayweather doesn't have the legacy to justify being in the Top 20 let alone the Top 10.
Oscar De La Hoya is greater than Floyd Mayweather.
Who has Floyd got in his resume? Tell me who? Other than the dinosaur fighters that he fought (Pac, DLH, Mosley). Floyd doesn't get the weighting of a full Pacquiao victory. Pacquiao was finished.